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Cerebra Gronoogle Zergata
"Let the vain scrabble for thrones and dominions. True power is in the might of one's arms, and the terror of one's troops. With such power, I am King wherever I stand." :::-- General Cerebra, During the Hutt Intercession Cerebra Gronoogle Zergata (b. 488 BBY), AKA "Cerebra the Hutt," AKA "Cerebra the Cruel" is among the most infamous Hutts. Known most for his role in the Hutt Intercession, the last great war of the Republic, Cerebra is remembered as an infamous General with strange loyalties and a perhaps stranger love of combat. Youth Hatched, as are all Hutts, with little concern for parentage, Cerebra was reared by the various Crime Lords and Under Bosses of Nar Shaddaa. Knowing that new Huttlings can be potential tools for their future machinations, the young of the Hutts are often sought after as "apprentices" to the arts of domination and tyranny, and Cerebra was no different. Nigh hatched from the clutch, he found himself in the service of one Gorlogg, from whom he was swiftly reared on basics of Hutt culture so that he could be brought before the Lords of Nar Shaddaa and claim his inheritance. Conflict with Hutt Culture Although Gorlogg was somewhat influential among the Lords of Nar Shaddaa, and anything but an unusual Hutt, Cerebra was unimpressed with his Baron, and chafed beneath his vassalage. Accomplished in the slave trade, especially in mercenary and gladiatorial slaves, Gorlogg's fiscal Empire was founded on a strong network of bribery and duplicity-- one enforcer constantly traded for the next when a mercenary Lieutenant became too sure of himself or too greedy. While Cerebra was by no means thick-witted, and easily grasped the economic machinations required to keep a third-rate Hutt Lord in business and in corpulence, he was disgusted with the weakness which required bribery and shadow-men to inspire fear in Gorlogg, and indeed all Hutt agents. This disgust grew as the years wore on into decades, and Cerebra found himself often conversing with the more exotic and battle-hardened acquisitions of his Baron-teacher. While respect would be going too far, Cerebra had a lingering appreciation for the skills of Gorlogg's slaves, and would often use his meager influence not to advance his standing among the Hutts and thus earn his own place among the Criminal Lords of Nar Shaddaa, but instead to bully the gladiators and mercenaries so doomed to indentured servitude into sparring with him, and teaching him the tools of their trade. No less fascinated was he by the skills of tactics and strategy than by the "grosser" finesse of martial prowess, which his fellow Hutts considered barbaric at the worst and at the best beneath them. "The Huttese figure is little made for combat," Gorlogg advised his rustic protégé, "It is unfitting for a Lord to debase himself so." But Cerebra listened little to Gorlogg, and it was not long before advice turned to derision and the young Hutt was maneuvered in disgrace by those with greater political power and wealth than he into a position of little import on the dust-bowl of Tatooine. Tatooine Years On Tatooine, Cerebra would have done what was expected of him if he would have diminished into a small-time Hutt, perhaps setting up a dingy palace in some corner of the wastes and eking by on an "honest" and thus degraded venture of strip-mining or junk sales. But Cerebra had no intention of dwindling quietly into the Tatooinan deserts to wither and die. The Hutt instead continued his martial training, and his business ventures were naught but an idle interest, keeping him in funds enough to improve his arsenal and hire rustic Tatooinans to teach him the art of warfare and combat. Uncanny though it may seem, Cerebra was able to turn his corpulent physique to his advantage. Rather than allowing his blubber to overwhelm him, he trained his muscles and became a vast and powerful creature, fast in slithering and terrible in battle. His fat became him armor, and his size an advantage that few foes could counter with speed or cunning-- for Cerebra had these as well. Slowly, the Hutt began to build himself up, hiring the most notorious and vile mercenaries and bounty hunters assembled in a small army. And these, though fearless in their own right and a terror in combat, were cowed not by bribery or the fear of a well-paid lackey, but by the Hutt himself, whose wrath they feared and whose tireless training they dared not test. Through fear of their lives and the end of his Force Pike, Cerebra inspired his men, women and hermaphroditic Arcona into submission, and his name was whispered not with mockery, but with horror by the simple folk of Tatooine. With long decades spent in training and assembling, Cerebra set forth at last from Tatooine with his criminal army, dubbed the Brood of Zergata, to make his fortune and, if he could, redeem himself in the eyes of his fellow Hutts. The Brood of Zergata Cerebra and his Brood set forth from Tatooine and, at first, sold their services as warriors to the highest bidder: be he Hutt, Human, or any other creature with credits to pay. In this way, the Huttese Warlord began to make up for lost time, assembling an ample fortune to compete with many of the Barons of Nar Shaddaa. The Kolroth Invasion In his first great victory, and the one which brought him again to the attention of the Hutts who had abandoned him, Cerebra sold his brood to the Drug Lord Kolroth the Talz, who plotted an invasion of Kessel and its lucrative spice mines. The Kolroth invasion was a bloody one, and was accomplished nigh single handedly by the Brood of Zergata, under the battle-field leadership of their Hutt and Lord. In a series of sweeping victories, Cerebra made landing on and took Kessel VII, destroying or taking prisoner all the soldiers who guarded the way to the inner system. There the Brood lie in wait, besieging the spice mines and Kessel V, where the Warden Holast had fled with a small contingent of his elite soldiers. The mines themselves Cerebra knew to be perilous, and he knew also that this peril could work both for and against him. Only when several months had passed did Cerebra begin his invasion of the mines, and his patience was well rewarded. For in those months Cerebra had not been idle, but enslaving the soldiers of Holast, and cowing them to his will, he had redoubled his force, while Holast and his men slowly ate their rations and began to starve, many turning to their own spice in despair. Cerebra sent in his slaves as a first wave, and though many were slaughtered, they overwhelmed Holast and his men, and the Brood took control of Kessel V without loss or injury. When the invasion was accomplished and Holast taken prisoner, Cerebra turned the mines over to Kolroth-- but not before a last minute renegotiation of his contract. Instead of a flat rate, Cerebra demanded that a new contingent of his Brood (in a large part the survivors of the slaves taken on Kessel VII) be employed as Kessel security to safeguard the new Warden. In exchange, Cerebra would exact a percentage of the spice profits. Although Koloth was wroth with this new bargain, he feared the strength of Cerebra thus encamped and holding the system he prized so dearly-- and these new terms were accepted begrudgingly. The Rylothi Incident Unable longer to ignore Cerebra, but still uncomfortable with the Hutt's methods, the Barons and Lords of Nar Shaddaa chose a middle path: to employ him. Although Cerebra began by taking any commission that came his way, his eagerness was to work again with his own people, in no small part to prove his worth to them that scorned him. Thus, Cerebra accepted a commission from the minor Baron Logmar to aide the Hutt's special interests on Ryloth in putting down a tribal rebellion that threatened the lucrative Twi'lek slave trade. Ryloth proved more difficult and more bloody a conflict than the invasion of Kessel; the Twi'lek tribesfolk were well-suited to the hostile climes of Ryloth, and the Brood was little used to guerrilla warfare. But Cerebra was a quick learner, and he was himself not untried on the desert. Beginning to crust and dry from his decades beneath the Tatooinan suns, Cerebra was a hardy Hutt and little daunted by perils that lay in the deep wastes of Ryloth. So slowly and with many losses he trained his men, investing in new repulsorcraft and airspeeders that would afford his growing army more mobility. The savvy Hutt also began to supplement his mercenary armies with native Twi'lek from opposing tribes, and from them he learned much about feint and flanking warfare in hostile climes, and his armies learned much as well. Slowly but surely, Cerebra and the Brood of Zergata out-maneuvered the Twi'lek tribes, hemming them in a narrow canyon, and there the slaughter of Rinoptyc Gorge is remembered with tears. Once hemmed, the Hutt commander cared little for the close engagement favored by the tribesfolk, but turned instead his artillery and heavier blasters upon the Twi'lek, killing them in droves. When enough carnage had been inflicted and the wailing of the Twi'lek rose from the gorge loud enough to drown out even the blast of Cerebra's mortar, then and only then did the Hutt relent. Here he earned his moniker "the Cruel," inspiring new fear in the troops he already commanded. As his right, Cerebra claimed on half of all the surviving Twi'leks, the other half he delivered into the hands of the wealthy Rylothi elite, and thus re-opened the slave trade which had nearly been choked by the tribal rebellion. Wiser, mightier, and with greater numbers than when he had arrived on Ryloth, Cerebra left in victory. Return to Nar Shaddaa With riches to rival many of the second-rate Lords of Nar Shaddaa, Cerebra could not but be welcomed back to his homeworld, even if the whisperings of the Hutts still spoke of him as an aberration. But these were whispers indeed, for with Cerebra came his Brood, and few of the Hutts wished to speak openly against one so mighty as he. But few though they were, Cerebra was opposed. In addition to those that whispered, a small coalition of extremely powerful Hutts, including Supreme Boss Joggo, Baron Horgaath, a former vassal of Gorlogg, and Gorlogg himself who had become more powerful in the long decades since Cerebra's exile, mocked him and laughed at him openly in the streets. Among them were the Hutts who had maneuvered Cerebra's exile long ago, and the militant and prideful Hutt found the derision of these his fellows, most of whom had grown too corpulent to move under their own power, a foul burden to bear. Although little interested in the position of Supreme Boss, Cerebra found himself obliged now to take notice of it-- and more than that to look to it as a cover for his revenge. Amidst the ever-present plotting of the Hutts, Cerebra found in Baron Logmar, his commissioner in the Ryloth wars, a keen and devious ally. Cerebra made it his mission, then, see that Logmar found his way to the position of Supreme Boss. With slow and careful machination, Logmar and Cerebra plotted each in their own ways, with the greater Councils of the Hutts completely unaware of their designs. For, departing from Hutt tradition, Logmar and Cerebra made no plans of subtle and painless assassination followed by an obvious nomination through bribery and favor-fishing. No, this foul pair plotted to overthrow the present regime militarily, and take at the end of a Force Pike the rulership of Nar Shaddaa. They were slow and patient in their plotting, and Cerebra proved himself as subtle a Hutt as any-- when need or necessity would force it of him. With long build up strength, the Brood became an army if ever there was one, regimented, divided, with well-trained slaves glutted on food and ravenous for the spoils of war under the command of foul Captains recruited from the Pirate elite of Nar Shaddaa's dark denizens. An army great enough to oppose a Republic world was wrought, and chuckled at as a needless indulgence and a waste of money by the rich and powerful Hutts. "Finally, Cerebra has found his vice," Joggo was heard to say, "Not in delicacy or in refinement, but in endless trivial sport. May he meet his end at it." But Cerebra did not meet his end at the hands of his slaves, who still he fought and overbore to practice his martial prowess; and Joggo would live to rue the day he uttered those words. Overthrow of the Supreme Boss When Cerebra and Logmar moved against the Supreme Boss, it was no great feat of battle and war. The whole of the incident lasted only a day, and did not even disturb the commerce of the criminal City World. The legions of Cerebra's Brood marched forth from his meager palace, and when they approached the Hutt Towers, Joggo's men were blasted down, and the others swiftly fled. Cerebra himself lead his elite troops into the Towers, and there all fled before his wrath. The Hutts were astounded-- too aghast to comment, and too confused to react. Cerebra slithered into the chambers of the Supreme Boss, and there found the den of Hutts who mocked him so openly. At the sight of his troops, Joggo's mercenaries slipped into the shadows, and kept their hands clear of their weapons. "What avail, now, are your credits, Baron Joggo?" Cerebra asked, sneering foully in the dark, "Where are your men, so dearly bought?" And fear crept into the older Hutt's face, and Joggo pleaded any price that his men-- or Cerebra's-- might join with him. But Cerebra only looked smugly upon his men, and they were cowed by him. Then, Cerebra slew Joggo with a Force Pike, starling all the Hutts who were present. For one Hutt to slay another is a thing all but unheard of, and Gorlogg and Horgaath slithered back with fear. But Cerebra did not kill the other Hutts who had once spoken ill of him, and he only looked on them with contempt. Thereafter, Logmar was installed as Supreme Boss, and for a long while none dared oppose him, or the dreaded legions of his ally. Adulthood The Hutt Intercession The Beginning of the War The Battle of Kashyyyk The Battle of Ord Mantell The Battle of Corellia Defeat and Imprisonment The Prison Years Old Age Release from Prison Recent Events Personality As a General Character Logs A Hutt Paroled, Meeting of Minds Category:Archived Characters